The Before
by Haripoons
Summary: Everyone's read the same self-insert save the world story, but what if more than one person woke up in a new body? What if the entire rookie nine, and more, was comprised of normal people from a normal world? Will they choose to be shinobi or will they decide to screw the ninja world and even leave Konoha?


In every self-insert story I've read the main character in question dies in some horrific and tragic accident or lives a long and fulfilling life before waking up in a fictional world. For me, falling into a different reality was as easy as falling asleep. I was working on a paper for school, something about gender inequality in the modern American workplace. I felt myself losing concentration and I zoned out.

All it took was one second, one blink, for me to reopen my eyes and see nothing but blurry shapes and figures. Needless to say, I was terrified. My parents must have thought I was a particularly fussy baby. In truth, I was a teenage girl trapped in the body of an infant with absolutely no idea what was going on. By age two I'd determined three important facts.

One: I had somehow been reincarnated, reborn, or something like that into a world where the popular Japanese series, Naruto, was more than fiction. It was reality.

Two: I was Sakura Haruno, pivotal character in the story, and an immature and annoying fangirl until Shippuden.

Three: My hair was naturally pink. Like seriously? What the heck? Who's ever heard of a pinkette? Sakura's mother and father, though I suppose they've become my parents at this point, had black and brown hair respectively. My hair was just not possible.

Another funny thing about self-insert stories is that the main character always travels worlds alone. Naturally, I assumed I was the only victim of whatever phenomenon had turned me into Sakura. I was wrong.

My life wasn't particularly interesting until age four. You're probably thinking that I should have been training, that I should have established myself as a prodigy and become ANBU at age six or some ridiculous crap like that. Let me tell you, I had absolutely no idea how Itachi, Kakashi, and all the other child prodigies did it. Maybe something about being born to other ninjas, rather than civilians, made them special, because quite frankly, until the academy I had absolutely no idea how to access more than the smallest amount of chakra, much less use it to walk up walls or trees. There was a reason, in canon, that shinobi were not taught treewalking until making genin.

Children's chakra reserves are abysmal, excluding the occasional overpowered exception (read Itachi, Kakashi, and Naruto) however that didn't mean I couldn't work on physical strength. At first, I was all gung ho about Gai's genius weight training program that Lee had used. I could be that fast!

Unfortunately, as I found out after extensive research, those weights were actually detrimental to the bone and muscle structure of a growing child, and I wouldn't be able to utilize them until at least age ten. Darn. Instead I resorted to daily runs and conditioning to build up my meager, young muscles.

As I learned more and more about the new world I had been born into, I realized how unrealistic it was to expect that I could "fix everything." Not only was I weak and nothing special, but the ideology of the entire world structure was flawed. Konoha was one of the less immoral villages and it was still a military dictatorship. Even the supposed "Will of Fire" was just a glorified way of saying Konoha shinobi had better be loyal to their village.

The more I thought about "ninja ideals" the sicker I felt. Sending twelve and thirteen year old children out to kill people for money? Forcing absolute hard work and obedience in exchange for what? A lifetime of trauma and pain? Watching everyone you love die? And that's not even starting on the way kunoichi were encouraged, expected really, to use their bodies as tools to achieve their mission goal. Everyone in this messed up world was being brainwashed and they didn't even know it. Sure being a ninja seemed like glory from a distance but the reality was harsh, brutal, and unrewarding.

As I realized the kind of life I'd essentially been sentenced to, I became unsure and scared. What was the point to me becoming a ninja when, in the long run, I'd be nothing more than jonin level cannon fodder with messed up teammates. I withdrew into myself essentially between ages two and four. My parents were worried but there wasn't much they could do to draw me out of my pensive thoughts when I wasn't in the mood to play a toddler.

When I turned four years old, mother and father decided I should start socializing with other children and sent me out to the park to play every day. There I met two very important girls: Ami and Ino. It was my first time meeting other canon characters in the series and I was both excited and apprehensive. I remembered the girls from the canon timeline. Ami would bully me and Ino would stick up for me, leading to a friendship that lasted until Sasuke (brooding emo idiot) came into the picture.

Much to my surprise, neither Ami nor Ino exhibited particularly aggressive or even childlike behavior. Ami looked around for rocks to collect and started building a castle, while Ino helped her decorate it with some lovely bluebells she picked from a patch of grass near some faded green monkey bars. The girls seemed absorbed in a conversation when I walked into the park, but quickly hushed and looked at me, as they murmured to each other in low tones.

Imagine my surprise when I heard them speaking not Japanese, but English. Learning Japanese had probably been the most difficult part of my childhood, and I always stubbornly held onto English as a reminder of my old life. Not to mention it was useful for writing in code.

"How do you know English?" I asked, somewhat warily, as I nervously regarded the two girls.

Ino blinked in surprise, then her eyes narrowed. "What's being a baby like?" she asked airily, pretending that her question was totally nonsensical. And it wouldn't have made sense to anyone not thrust into a fanfiction worthy situation.

"It's a pain in the butt," I responded, in English, "Infant bodies are weak and uncoordinated and I felt completely trapped for the first year or so."

Ami smiled at me, "So you've been transferred or reincarnated her or some crap like that then too?"

"Yeah. Where are you two from?"

Ami smiled happily as Ino spoke up, "We were actually lucky enough to know each other in The Before as we've been calling our previous life. We both went to Westlake High School and were good friends."

I blinked in surprise, trying to quash the feeling of hope I felt building in my chest. "Maya . . . Lauren . . . " I whispered hopefully, "Is that you?"

Ino grinned, suddenly looking a lot like one of my closest friends, Maya from The Before. "Omigod, it couldn't be . . . Talia?

"Yes," I breathed, happy beyond belief. I wasn't alone. I wouldn't have to face this horrible, new world all by myself. Thank goodness.


End file.
